Nuclear plant’s safety is built-in blessing

AN ONLINE POST showing a Taoist priest practicing “magic” at a ceremony for the laying of the foundation stone for a nuclear power project in Minqin, Northwest China’s Gansu province, created a stir recently. Beijing News comments:

Two co-hosts of the ceremony, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Minqin authorities, later confirmed the post was not fake news. The academy has suspended two employees who were present at the ceremony, and the Minqin disciplinary and supervisory departments have initiated an investigation into the involvement of seven local civil servants.

Some people say the punishment goes too far because it was a private construction company that invited the Taoist priest, not the nine scapegoats, and it is a “folk custom” in Minqin.

As a matter of fact, the punishment is necessary, because these people are not permitted to take part in superstitious activities as employees of State-run organizations, according to the relevant rules and regulations.

Considering their identity as public employees and the State ownership of the nuclear power project, they were obliged to stop the farce. If not, their presence suggests their support of such superstitious prctices.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Minqin watchdogs have done what they should do. If they had kept silent over it, the people would have enough reasons to believe such “folk activities” are needed to ensure the safety of even such a high-tech project — let alone the other public infrastructure construction projects.

Even the “folk custom” supporters cannot deny that what will really ensure the construction project’s safety will be the quality of the construction, not the blessing of the Taoist priest, who is in fact a local farmer.